Three-day postal strike could cost Brits $2.5 billion

England’s trusty mail carriers have plunged the country into uncertainty by staging a two-day strike last week, with three more mail-less days scheduled to begin on Thursday. In a country where locals used to set their watches by the clatter of the mail slipping through their letterboxes, often twice a day, this seems to cut to the core of British identity.

By some estimates, the strike threatens to cost the already hobbled U.K. economy up to £1.5 billion ($2.5 billion) in lost business. So Prime Minister Gordon Brown has spoken up, calling for the Royal Mail and the striking Communications Workers Union to get back to the negotiating table. “This strike will be self-defeating if all it means is that less people use the Royal Mail,” Brown told the BBC.